Presented at the Scrum.org F2F, Seattle, 2016

1. A word of warning….
• Bullet points and boring formatting follow.
• Ideas expressed may only be cohesive to the presenter.
• Time poor Richard has been time poor.
• Rule #1 of presentations: Never start by apologising for what will
follow. But since you’re my friends… it’s better to ask for forgiveness
than permission, right?

2. So, Flaccid coaching, huh?
What do I mean? This:
• Impotent
• Lacking strength, force, vigour
• Insipid
• Passive
• All the talk, none of the walk

3. The symptoms and smells…
Companies who have an “agile coach” already, yet have…
• Poor practices with no signs of improvement over time
• Disempowerment and morale that only seems to get worse
• Ivory tower attitudes; us/them mentalities
• Vague, handy wavy, communications and buzz word bingo
• Games and team building exercises, not getting stuff done
• Focus on “the feels”, ignore professionalism and delivery
• Poor behaviours never get called out
• Servants, not leaders

4. A few stories from the field
“I was unaware we even had an agile coach until a few weeks in.
Turns out they were sitting with the real product owner, yelling out
buzz words like 'self-organise' for when there wasn't a plan and
creating motivational posters”
“At our standups, we had the product owner asking when things would
get done and the scrum master delegating tasks.”

5. A few more…
“We got to a client to find an agile coach getting a team of 30 people in
a room for a standup and each person would go and move their post it
note on the wall as they spoke about it. Stand ups would take for ever.”
“The [coach’s] official title was "Head of Enterprise Agility". This person
would organise monthly "Agile Lunches" where teams would get
together and have team building exercises. They would also put up
"Agile Myth" posters all over the place.”

6. Coaching Nightmares: Insights we can Learn
from Gordon Ramsay (Craig Smith)
Episode formula:

7. The worst coaches (and scrum masters)…
• Lucky if they get the first two
• Many fail to even go and observe, relying on second hand info.

8. The only slightly less worse ones…
• Ask for teams to commit to improvement
• And fail to give any practical correction or guidance at all

9. Initiating conflict?
• One of the hardest things I learned how to.
• But without conflict, we never improve.

10. Well meaning, but weak coaches…
• Lack confidence / experience.
• Lack skills / domain knowledge.
• Fail to lead by example
• Fails to engage experts to help when they have gaps

11. How do we help the weak coaches?
• Critical First Step – Get permission to help!
• Without permission, advice and support will be spurned
• Consider the Ramsay model (but without the swearing)
• Listen & Learn
• Observe
• Hold a mirror
• Ask to commit
• Teach & Mentor
• Stand with the coach
• Retrospectives for the coach

12. Not quite so simple though
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2674314/More-60-cent-Kitchen-Nightmares-restaurants-visited-Gordon-Ramsay-closed.html
• Ramsay visited 77 restaurants across seven seasons
• Nearly 50 of the eateries have since shuttered
• Some didn’t last long enough to see their episodes air while still in
business & one closed during filming for the show.

13. Why?
• Too late to save? Ramsay was only delaying the inevitable?
• Remember, the restaurants were already on the brink of failure
• Honeymoon was over and best intentions faded?
• i.e. old habits die hard
• People learned to mimic? They didn’t gain understanding?
Sounds familiar, right?